A Girly Dresser Makeover

Last week I refinished a dresser for a friend of mine, and I discovered a fun technique I wanted to share with you. Plus it turned out pretty stinkin’ cute, fit for a pint size ballerina.

A long long time ago, my friend purchased this dresser with the hopes of refinishing it for her new baby girl. That baby girl is almost 4 (and adorable). It just so happens that my friend is pretty crafty (and we share a lot of the same skills), so I asked her what I could do for her for Christmas that she didn’t have time for or wasn’t confident in tackling. The dresser makeover was what she wanted, so I took it home and went to work.

And this was AFTER I repaired the structural damage and slapped on some primer.

I had my work cut out for me. Maybe it would have been easier just to get another dresser and start over, but I loved the fact that this one had been in the family with the hopes of a makeover for so long. So I filled, sanded, filled, and sanded until the finish was pretty smooth despite the 3 layers of cracking paint underneath.

But then I had a knob problem. I have seen these simple wooden knobs on dozens of pieces of furniture…I’m sure you know the ones I mean…so let’s just pretend I took a photo, yes? All 10 of them had been painted white in the past and colored with marker in shades of green. It was all but decided that I’d toss them and buy new ones…until I pretty much hated everything I found in my budget (I try not to pay more than $2/knob).

I thought of all the ways I could save them: repaint or recover. Yeah, that’s just two.

Painting over peeling knobs just didn’t appeal to me. I’d have to sand them quite a bit, and they still probably wouldn’t have that factory smooth finish. Recovering was my only option really. Fabric would have been difficult around the curves, but it led me to think about another more flexible textile: yarn. Plus, a couple of years ago this very friend unloaded a bunch of her old yarn into my stash- which I thought would be a nice touch. It was a rainbow striped yarn in the perfect colors for a little girl’s room.

All it took was a hot glue gun and some patience to wrap the yarn in a spiral. I think I finished them all in an hour or so watching a couple of episodes of How I Met Your Mother. I love that I was able to reuse the original knobs, re/up-cycling is always a priority for me.

It was such fun surprise that the different colors in the yarn made each knob unique, but they coordinate perfectly. Definitely a girly touch for a girly 4 year old, but this technique could work on a more grown-up piece. What do you think? Have you ever recovered knobs instead of painting them or replacing them?